A New Happiness Study Says We Should All Spend More Time in Bed

As the old saying goes, money can't buy happiness, and new research is backing this idea up.

U.K. supermarket chain Sainsbury's recently commissioned a study conducted by Oxford Economics and the National Centre for Social Research about what it means to "live well." They developed the Living Well Index based on 8,250 U.K. residents' answers to a 60-question survey that looked at eight main pillars of well-being: sleep quality, sex life, job security, health of close relatives, interaction with neighbors, support networks, the presence of children at home, and relationship status.

While the average score out of 100 was 62.2, the researchers paid particular attention to differences in the lifestyle, habits, and circumstances of people who scored in the top 20 percent (with scores above 72.3) and the bottom 20 percent (with scores under 52.6). Researchers found that two lifestyle factors pulled ahead of the rest in their impact on an individual's happiness: sleep and sex. Sleep quality made the biggest difference between the well-being of the top and bottom 20 percent. Of people who were "living well," 60 percent said they felt well-rested after a night of seep, while only five percent of those not living well said the same thing. What's more, the best-rested people scored an average of 15 points higher on the Living Well Index than the least-rested.

Sex also played a huge role: People who reported the most satisfaction with their sex lives scored an average of seven points higher on the index than those who reported the least satisfaction with their sex lives. (This isn't to say that more sex translated to more happiness, but that participants' feelings about the amount and quality of sex they were having were closely tied with their overall satisfaction.) Increases in income, meanwhile, were nowhere near as impactful when it came to well-being. Participants reported that quadrupling their income would only increase their overall scores by two points.

In their conclusion, researchers noted that while improving quality of life is easier said than done, a few small lifestyle changes can make a big difference. "Some things may be hard or impossible to change, such as the health of close relatives," they wrote. " But some may be simply a matter of personal choice like spending more time outdoors and eating more frequently with friends or family." Or, for example, spending more time in bed, either alone or with a partner — or even a favorite accessory. Hey, science said it was a good idea.